


Experiments

by sylviarachel



Series: Experiments, Negotiations, and Cups of Tea [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylviarachel/pseuds/sylviarachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People are always assuming they're a couple, and Sherlock never corrects them. Eventually, John has to ask him why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experiments

“You never correct people,” John says.

“What?”

“You never correct people.”

Sherlock looks up from the kitchen microscope with his dark brows furrowed. “This morning you advised me to _stop_ correcting people. _Not good_ , you said. What is this _about_ , John? I’m _working_.”

This is news to John, who’s now wishing he had chosen his moment better. Well: in for a penny …

He clears his throat. “It’s about _us_ , Sherlock.”

Frown. “Us?”

“The fact that there _is_ no ‘us,’” John continues, looking anywhere but into Sherlock’s pale-blue eyes, “and that everyone we meet assumes there is, and _you never tell them they’re wrong._ ”

“Of course there’s an ‘us,’ John. We’re flatmates. We’re friends. You’re my blogger.”

 _Calm. Keep calm and don’t throttle your flatmate._ “That’s not what I mean. Not what _they_ mean.”

Dead silence from the vicinity of the microscope.

“You _like_ to tell people they’re wrong, Sherlock. You enjoy it. Showing them how much cleverer you are. You never let people get away with calling you a psychopath or a private detective, Sherlock, so _why the hell_ do you let them get away with calling you my,” swallow, clearing of throat, “boyfriend?”

He can’t stare at the fridge door forever. He makes himself look at Sherlock, who surprisingly has not gone back to peering through the microscope but is still looking – with intent, actually truly disconcerting, focus – at him.

“It bothers you.” The tone is so nearly neutral, just a little bit … puzzled.

“And it doesn’t bother you? All those people getting it wrong all the time? I’d have thought—”

“Why? Why should you care what those idiots think? Why should I?”

“Well, but it’s not just idiots, is it! You wouldn’t call Irene Adler an idiot?”

It’s just a tiny twitch of Sherlock’s lower lip, hardly perceptible, but still John’s immediately sorry he mentioned her. He knows she’s dead and Sherlock is meant not to know it, and John also knows what a piss-poor liar he is.

“Look,” he says, gazing at the fridge again. “It’s just … well, look, it’s a bit of a mixed signal, isn’t it.” _Sod it_. “I mean—”

Sherlock’s tone is detached and distant. “You said,” he says, “and I quote, ‘It’s fine. It’s all fine.’”

John looks at him, but there’s nothing to see now but a remote alabaster profile. “I—”

“Was that not, in fact, true?” Sherlock’s head swivels abruptly and the glacial eyes are fixed on John’s again, pinning him in place.

John’s had his share of awkward conversations, but surely no conversation in the history of humanity has ever been as awkward as this one. _“I’m a high-functioning sociopath,” you said._

 _No_ , thinks John, _no, you’re bloody well not._

“ _You_ said,” clearing of throat, “‘I consider myself married to my work.’ You were trying to stop me making a pass, which, by the way, I was _not doing_. Then or at any other point.”

Silence.

“Women, Sherlock. I like them.”

A prim expression, chin and one eyebrow up. “Obviously. I have seen your browser history, you know.”

Yes, there it is again, that familiar _punch-me-in-the-face_ subtext. John’s hands clench, release. Deep breath.

“Sherlock. I just want to know. Just— tell me what it means that you keep letting these … _assumptions_ go unchallenged.”

Elegant raising of eyebrows, telegraphing what he’s going to say before he says it: “Isn’t it obvious?”

 _If you clock him one you’re not going to get an answer._ Steadying breath. “Take me through it, Sherlock. Please.”

Lifted chin; exasperated sigh. “One,” says Sherlock, “it’s very useful.” He ignores John’s sputtering and sails on: “When people are busy speculating about my sex life, they’re not busy thinking of ways to interfere with my work. Two, it’s entertaining to throw them off-balance and make them re-evaluate. _Hmm_ , they’re thinking, _if I was wrong about his ability to sustain a relationship, what else might I be wrong about?_ ”

“Sherlock—”

“Three, I was curious to see how long it would take before you felt you had to initiate this conversation.” Brief conspiratorial grin, as if John is going to appreciate the joke, good God. “And, four—”

John is prepared for mockery, insults, even possibly a swift right cross. What he doesn’t expect is a sudden pounce, long fingers gripping his biceps, wide ice-blue eyes at very close range, and warm soft lips on his.

What he _very much_ doesn’t expect is that Sherlock Holmes is as skilled at kissing as he is hopeless at keeping his mouth shut.

John’s brain has clearly short-circuited. He’s hallucinating. There was something in his tea. It’s just not possible that Sherlock is kissing him, and even less possible that he’s enjoying it.

Sherlock pulls away from the kiss, leans back against the kitchen worktop and examines John through narrowed eyes.

“I thought so,” he says quietly. Smugly. Infuriatingly.

 _I know that tone of voice._ And they’re back in familiar emotional territory now, too: impotent fury is very familiar, yes.

(Although … perhaps not the very best choice of adjectives, that, just at the moment.) (And isn’t that a disturbing thought.)

“Sherlock!” It comes out as a strangled yelp. Swallow. Deep breath. “Christ, Sherlock, was that an _experiment_? If you’re conducting some sort of fucking experiment on me--” He doesn’t add, _again_ , but it hangs there, implied, at the end of that not-quite-finished sentence.

“Obviously not.” Smooth bass-baritone purr. “That was a _kissing_ experiment, John. Do keep up.”

“Not. Funny.” John’s fists are clenched so tightly that his knuckles actually ache. “ _Consent_ , Sherlock. You get people’s consent before you experiment on them, yeah? -- well, no, I suppose _you_ don’t – for God’s _sake_ , Sherlock.” How can he just stand there looking—

“And you bloody well get people’s consent before-- before-- Sherlock! Stop _smirking_ at me like that, you smug bastard … !”

And Sherlock _is_ smirking, standing there in his posh dressing-gown and artfully rumpled curls, leaning back on the worktop with his arms folded, one bare ankle crossed over the other, like an encyclopaedia illustration under the heading “Public-School Toff.” (Later, though, John will remember the nervous drumming of fingers, the restless jiggle of that non-weight-bearing foot.) He’s looking _vindicated_. He thinks he’s proved something – won something – is right about something. John’s seen that expression a hundred times at least, but this is the most it’s ever infuriated him. _Christ, Sherlock! What the_ hell _is going on in your head?_

John means to ask this out loud, and possibly also to lunge across the narrow kitchen with a good left hook, maybe an elbow to the ribs. He may be shorter, but he’s just as fit and a bloody sight angrier, if not (yet) quite angry enough to throw the left cross that would knock Sherlock’s head straight back into the cabinetry. (He’s fairly sure that concussion will not improve his flatmate’s disposition.)

It is not, definitely not, part of the plan to lunge across the kitchen, grab Sherlock’s head with both hands, and kiss him like a drowning man who’s found a source of oxygen.

Definitely not.

On the plus side, that infuriating smug expression of Sherlock’s is completely gone.

Instead he looks … stunned. Gobsmacked. It’s a good look on him, John decides, feeling the corners of his mouth twitching up. Something new.

Sherlock is silent for a long moment, and finally says – his voice a low rumble, strangely uncertain – “Was that … an experiment?”

John’s on the verge of laughing at this when their eyes meet and the expression in Sherlock’s abruptly sucks all the laughter out of him, and possibly all the air out of his lungs as well.

John has seen his flatmate look bored, annoyed, harassed, impatient, pleased, triumphant, terrified, smug, furious, amused, intent, insulted, bereft. Unlike most people, he has even seen what it looks like when Sherlock truly, genuinely smiles. This is not any of those things; this is … an emotion? a state of mind? he’s ever seen on Sherlock before, nor ever expected to. This, in fact, is a Sherlock who does not know what to do, or what to say, or – possibly – even what to think.

John reckons that he, John, must also look gobsmacked. _What the bloody hell did I just do?_

“I … don’t,” he clears his throat again, “I don’t know.”

“So, then, all that righteous posturing about consent …?”

 _Sodding hell._ “Jesus. I’m sorry. I don’t … I’m sorry, Sherlock.” John turns away, heat rising up his neck and flooding his face; shoulders hunched, hands pressed to the worktop, he leans his forehead against the cabinetry. “I shouldn’t … I don’t know why I--”

“John.” Low, quiet rumble above his right ear; hand on his shoulder, tentative, warm. “Don’t worry. I can always just delete this.”

Swallow. Stare down at a rack of test tubes. “And … will you?”

“I’d … actually … rather not.”

Slowly, because this is possibly the most difficult thing he’s ever done, John makes himself raise his head and turn to look up at Sherlock, whose hand falls away from his shoulder, who steps back as if, suddenly, he cares about John’s personal space.

“You realize,” John says, “that whole … thing … that just happened. That was very, very not normal. I mean, that was not something flatmates normally do.”

Sherlock’s chin goes up again, he could be wearing ermine robes and carrying a sceptre, but there’s a tiny, terrifying, irresistible gleam in his eyes. “Normal,” he declares, “is boring.”

Then he reaches towards John again, leans down. Part of John’s brain recognizes that he’s going slowly this time, giving John time to get away. But the other parts gang up on it, and instead he just keeps staring, mesmerized, as the terrifying, irresistible gleam grows closer and closer.

_Nope. Definitely never bored._

**Author's Note:**

> Someone help me. I've got a deadline, but I can't seem to stop.


End file.
